Toast.ED - low key and casual in nappy valley - July 2013

 

A slight apology to start with. This is yet another positive review. In a long string of positive reviews. If it feels like I've mistitled the blog (I had one wag suggest it's recently been closer to the Gushing Gourmet, though that was before this week's post on 'Why I hate food markets') then I can only apologise for misleading you. If you're looking for a side of bile and vitriol with every main course, I suggest you head over to AA Gill's muscularly snarling man-spot in The Times.

I'm not going to apologise for a run of lovely meals. I'm having far too much fun for that. I mainly put it down to my restaurant radar, vastly improved over recent years, and the result of reasonable research (or so I'd hope). While it's true that a true car crash dinner (like last year's trip to Bistro De La Gare) is a source of much amusement, generally I don't like having bad meals just so I can dissect them for your pleasure, you're more than capable of doing that yourselves.

Toast.ED is a case in point. Why wouldn't I come here when everyone I know who has been has raved about it. A new kid on the block in smugly gentrified East Dulwich, it occupies the space vacated by one of my old favourites Green & Blue. Thankfully, it's got the look and feel of a welcome reboot of that friendly if haphazard local winestore and deli rather than being a wholesale makeover by another smug middle-class chain. 

It's the second weekend in a row I've arrived for one of the rickety wooden tables in the front of the store and stretched out with well brewed Allpress coffee while pondering the menu. Last week I didn't crave for anything more than soft avocado on thick toast, perked with the lightest touch of chilli and lemon juice, this week I loitered over another excellent coffee until the lunch menu came on line.

A whole, smiling mackerel arrived lounging on a thick slab of toast, begging for finger licking evisceration and a healthily Chinese attitude towards digging the plump nuggets of fresh pearly flesh from its bones. Dusted with toasted ginger (sadly a little lost in the flavour of the fish) it's a thing of simple beauty and, assuming it pops up again on a frequently changing menu, one of the nicest summer lunches I could imagine.

If that was the starring role at lunch, it came very ably supported by a simply blanched courgette, parsley and caper salad and a lovely, if slightly shy, Muscadet from the wine vats lining the walls of the cool, refreshing industrial space.

Those vats offer reasonably priced take out or drink in house style wines, a beautiful French concept we haven't really cottoned on to here. At 11-12 quid a bottle for on sales it makes a fine argument for more people doing the same. The food prices too are very reasonable, and you won't spend more than fifteen a head without a bottle of that wine, though why you wouldn't have one, I can't imagine.

 

 

Six reasons why I hate food markets - July 2013

Blame it on the sun... it's brought out my inner curmudgeon. But on a gorgeous summer's day like today, I couldn't think of anything worse than hitting up a food market in London.

Tongue slightly in cheek, here are the six reasons why I'm staying away...

Disagree? Let me know why...
Agree? What else gets your goat about them?

 
1/ Artisan coffee vendors - Yes, I need a coffee. Yes, I would like a 'nice' one, I find Starbucks bland and incipid. However, I don't really give a flying one exactly where the bean comes from. Nor do I want a lecture on the history of the particular farmer who grew it. And frankly when I get to the front of the (very slow moving, you little perfectionist you) queue to find you 'disagree' with my partners request for skimmed milk or refuse to tend my hangover an extra shot because it'll damage the 'balance' of your beverage I find it a little tedious. I. Just. Want. A. Coffee. And I'm putting up with the sort of preparation I'd expect from a £15 cocktail. It costs how much for a pair of lattes? Damn.

2/ The £9 burger boys - it's the same van I see outside Crystal Palace Football Ground, with the same staff I see outside Crystal Palace Football Ground. But you've slapped a slightly wonky graphic of a rare breed cow on the side, bought a ton of whole grain 'artisan' rolls and added a fiver to the price. And no, I'm not going to pay an extra 'paand' for braised heritage onions or authentically fake American cheese. And if you come near my slightly sorry looking bap with guacamole then I will get very angry...

3/ the vultures - oh sorry, it's me getting between you and your umpteenth piece of free Cheddar? I do apologise, that'll teach me for having the temerity to try and buy something... Why do you never buy anything? Oh yes, because it's six times the price of any other shop and you'd rather scavenge for your lunch...

4/ street food that isn't street food - just because it's ethnic doesn't mean I have to stand in the drizzle / burning sun trying to work out how to eat it from a rapidly dissolving, recycled paper plate. We weren't the only culture that sits down to eat, though we might be the only culture to have evolved past that point to charge people over the odds for something inedible that will end up smeared over their beard or in a bin.
 
5/ Hipsters

6/ Vegetables that aren't vegetables - I get that they're fresh, is that why they're still covered in mud? And that they're so stunted and weird I'll have to cut 2 thirds of it away. Is that because they're organic? Or because you can't grow vegetables fit for human consumption in a Dalston roof garden?

 

Bouchon Fourchette - a gorgeous Gallic supper club... in Hackney - July 2013

Watching a good friend pull a cum face as she loads soft, crumbly, chocolate cake into her mouth makes me shift uncomfortably in my chair. Trying it though, it's not difficult to see why I was (briefly, until I started my own pud) wishing I was having what she was having.

It's not that Bouchon Fourchette is doing anything innovative to make us squeal, or that its genre-bending, future fusion food is turning our knees to jelly. This is more the lovely sensation you get watching something work, pretty much, as it should do.

It's a labour of true Gallic love. For the food, and the wine, and the insouciant atmosphere of a hundred and one small town bistros. God only knows why you'd try and recreate any of that on the most unloved part of Mare Street, but someone obviously felt that they were up to the challenge. Thankfully for the casually tattooed locals, they look like they might be.

Inside, you're snugly insulated from the roaring of Mare Street by the atmosphere, if not quite the ersatz decor. Concrete floors, cabinets half-inched from a house clearance yard and reclaimed 70's school furniture are fun, but closer to a supper club in an artist's studio in the 20th arrondissement than a 'proper' restaurant. Still, it is Hackney after all...
 

  I'm sure there's a very specific European word for a menu that consists only of things you desire to eat immediately. Mackerel rillette, dense and well-seasoned with the fragrant tang of juniper berries, came with jewelled pomegranate seeds and slices of earthy brown loaf (unexpected and an improvement on the general standard sourdough). Densely lardy saucisson was more than adequate too.

Our main was a well-hung and gamey cote de boeuf, as well cooked as I've had for a difficult lump of cow such as this. Proudly carved table-side, and at £35 with sides for two people, one of the best priced cuts of steak I've had out for a very long time. The side of spinach arrived towards the end of the meal with a cheerfully shouted apology to our table by the kitchen for forgetting it, and I'm back in that supper club again.

Barely-together creme caramel whispered to me like a sultry French chanteuse, the minxy little temptress wilfully ignoring the fact that I looked (and sounded) like Mr Creosote after that Cote de Boeuf. Much as I love it, such a cliched dessert rarely lives up to expectation. This one did, and certainly made up for the fact I wasn't heading for a cocoa-based knee-trembler like my dining companion.

The wine list isn't seemingly one for experts, it's one for drinkers. A handful of bottles, all available by the glass or carafe too, with nothing that isn't fizzy over £35. They bounce casually around the world's wine regions and have obviously been selected by someone who had a bloody good night trying them all, rather than a suit seeking to maximise profit ratio.
 

Slight niggles? I'll give a shoulder shrug and a scowl for the need to pay for my bread. Lovely it might be (white baguette, natch) but it's not really done these days. I'd make a bigger deal of it if it wasn't offset by the pricing elsewhere.

Bouchon Fourchette doesn't exactly feel like a restaurant, and that may be its biggest strength. It's like being cooked for by unhurriedly fashionable friends with astonishingly good taste in food and wine. Get them to invite you round for dinner soon.
 

 
http://www.bouchonfourchette.co.uk

Quo Vadis - My, haven't you aged well? - July 2013

It's been a while now since new chef Jeremy Lee took over at Soho institution Quo Vadis, and even longer since the Hart brothers refurbishment that brought it back onto foodie radars after a decade of sliding standards.

The space gives the impression of being bigger than it is. Room after room of fresh, clean and chic off-whites and brasses open up as you penetrate deeper while thick white table linens mute the noise from tightly packed neighbours, the majority of them the loud and jolly old boys of the advertising type I thought had abandoned Soho altogether.

The little touches from the staff are delicately assured. There's still or sparkling filtered water, a banter if you need, an efficiency of clear and serve if you're obviously otherwise engaged and an eye for attention matched by some of the seasonal dishes on the well turned out rustic menu.

And it's from that short menu that we grab a short but perfectly formed lunch. I wistfully but worthily skirt a chicken and guinea fowl pie, but suffer agonies when it turns up centimetres away on the neighbouring table, huge and gleaming, its buttery smell wafting over the slim divide between the tables. I'm also deeply envious of a huge hunk of bleeding ruby hued onglet steak that arrives next to it, served up with golden railway sleeper-like triple cooked chips.

Thankfully, I get to sample some of those chips with one of the other substantial mains on offer. Coqulet isn't a bird you often see on restaurant menus. In these days of tightly managed animal husbandry too few young roosters, like their bovine equivalents, get out of early infancy. This one made a great case for them to hit more tables though. A hefty half bird was served simply roasted, with gloriously garlicky herb butter squashed into every crevice. Packed with taste, soft, supple and meaty, the bird is more than a match for its stuffing.

Alongside that, there were two simple but effective fishy salads, both ostensibly starters, that worked well to create a combined main course. Young garlic shoots, crushed olives, peas and mint came together well, though the mint was a little overpowering. Beautifully cooked squid with asparagus was much better, a lovely mix of flavours and textures.

It's an accomplished restaurant experience, as you'd expect from two of the capital's more accomplished restaurateurs, and has a quirky but polished charm that should ensure it retains its place near the top of the London dining pile this time round.

 

Top image nicked from the restaurant - 

I was on a business lunch so photography wasn't an option